Cubs Sign Yu Darvish

So, it's finally happened. After approximately 40 months, Yu Darvish has finally made it official with the Cubs, signing a 6-year, $126 million deal. There are incentives that could increase the total take to $150 million, but the first indication is that those incentives are somewhat difficult to maximize (a mix of start totals/ASG/Cy Youngs). Generally, the idea behind incentives is that you WANT him to hit them, so I'm all for it.

When I was musing about a "reasonable" contract for Darvish, I sort of felt 5/$125 was fine. To get the 6th year at $1 million is reasonble – it will be Darvish's age-36 season and at the point he'll almost certainly be a 5th starter or bullpen arm. If the Cubs win the 2018 and/or 2019 World Series, absolutely no reasonable Cubs fan will give a shit about the $21 million albatross in the Cubs rotation in 2022/2023.

Yu Darvish was either #1A or #1B in the free agency wishlist depending on your thoughts about Jake Arrieta. I think I leaned towards Arrieta with injuries as the tiebreaker (Arrieta is hurt much less often), but Darvish is the slightly better projection going forward. Pretty difficult to watch Darvish annihilate the Cubs in the NLCS last year and not come away impressed. He was tipping his pitches in the World Series and may well have cost them the entire thing, but that seems to be an issue that is fairly easy to resolve. Darvish throws righty, strikes out a ton of batters (27.3% K rate), and features one of the better sliders in baseball. Darvish is also unique in the sense that he features 4 primary offerings (4, slider, sinker, cutter all used 15% of the time or more), a secondary offering (curveball around 5% of the time), and 2 novelty pitches (a change he might throw twice a game and a splitter he might throw once). He's nearly impossible to counter-sequence because he's willing to throw nearly any pitch during nearly any count. That said, he has traditional splits (in fact, lefties hit him slightly better than you'd expect from someone with normal splits), and you'd think intuitively that any body who can generate run to both sides of the plate would be able to split-neutralize. Not Darvish.

If you're looking for something to gripe about, you don't have to look far. From 2014 to 2016, his inning totals were 144.1, 0, 100.1. That's very troubling – allayed slightly by his 2017 campaign and the fact that he got stronger as the year progressed. Still, he's got a long list of ex-DL stints, and they'll tell you he's in pain. He's got a blank slate now, though.

Yu Darvish hit a home run in 2016.In fact, he has more than quintupled Shohei Otani's MLB total for their careers.

The bottom line is that the Cubs absolutely needed another starter to be competitive in the upper echelon of baseball this year. The Cubs were set 1-5 in an age where you need at least 6 starters in a given year (and probably 7 or 8). They have 4 playoff-caliber starters in a league that requires 4 or 5. In my opinion, this is a very solid signing and pretty firmly puts the Cubs in the driver's seat of the NL Central (apologies to the Cardinals and Brewers).

Apparently the opt out is prior to three years so whatever that means. I’m guessing after 2019, but the wording of the tweet could still mean after 2020. I don’t really care about opt outs so whatever.

I’m generally very pro player in these kinds of things, but it’s getting pretty hard when you see guys like JD Martinez, who has 13.5 WAR in his career, is complaining that teams aren’t willing to give him the 7/210 deal that he’s holding out for while he has 5/125 already on the table.

I agree it seems totally out of whack, but there’s so much money in baseball these days. The players in MLB still make a lower percentage of revenue than the other three major sports. The players in baseball are getting screwed, especially the league minimum guys.

Yeah, looks like the NFL players kinda get screwed. I was wrong. I remember something from Tangotiger from a few years ago about this and for some reason I thought MLB players made the lowest percentage. A few years ago I would have looked into this to find out where I read that, but I just don’t care these days.

I’d still be pretty happy if the Cubs could get Jaime Garcia on a reasonable deal. He’d be good rotation depth from the ‘pen like Montgomery, and better than Grimm and possibly also Cishek if he’s in one of his down cycles.

As much as I’d love for the Cubs to sign Harper, I don’t think you can even count on him getting to free agency and even if he does, there’s going to be a huge bidding war for him. Odds he ends up in Chicago are pretty slim even if we’ve already started penciling him into our dream 2019 lineup.

Rice Cube shares my thought. Cobb brings the Cubs much closer to the luxury tax limit that Garcia would. And that kind of money to push Chatwood into a $12 M relief pitcher seems redundant for little gain in the short term and even less gain in the long term since there would be less flexibility if you were staying under luxury tax after next season.

OTOH, next year’s FA class is huge, but with only two really young marquis players: Harper and Machado. If Russell or Baez flame out, I guess you could put Zo or Happ at 2b and whoever doesn’t flame out at SS. So the money could be spent on either Harper or Machado.

Or, the money could be spent on Rizzo, Bryant, Russell, Hendricks, etc.

You could assume at least some of them will sign extensions. I think Harper is going to free agency because he’d be unwise to not at least test his market. I think Machado is the same because the Orioles are terrible in every way imaginable, and I don’t think they’ll throw money at him.

BVS: Or, the money could be spent on Rizzo, Bryant, Russell, Hendricks, etc.

I’d love an extension for Bryant, but no thanks on the others. Rizzo still has 2 years plus 2 options years on his contract at which point he’ll be 32. I’m not sure I want to bet much more than arbitration money on Hendricks continuing to be a good pitcher and before I give out an extension to Russell I’d like to see some improvement from him at the plate.

dmick89: before I give out an extension to Russell I’d like to see some improvement from him at the plate.

Totally agree about this. Also with B on Contreras. We’ll know more next fall. If Harper or Machado don’t sign with the Cubs, then extensions might be a pretty good way to spend some money.

Looking at the MLBTR FA list for next year, it seems that there are the two marquis guys, then a bunch of guys would be great to contemplate, but who’s options will certainly be picked up (like Bumgarner) and then a slightly older class than this year. Seems to me that if MLB Players Union wants bigger money, they need to negotiate earlier arbitration or free agency. The idea that 36 year olds will all produce like Nelson Cruz has been debunked by now and it looks like teams are wising up.

I’m not sure I understand why you’d front-load a contract with an opt-out in it. It’s basically a 2-year deal for $45 million, which I think is a good deal for the Cubs and for Darvish. I can’t imagine a scenario in which he doesn’t opt out that doesn’t include him being injured for a significant part of the contract.

I’m not sure I understand why you’d front-load a contract with an opt-out in it. It’s basically a 2-year deal for $45 million, which I think is a good deal for the Cubs and for Darvish. I can’t imagine a scenario in which he doesn’t opt out that doesn’t include him being injured for a significant part of the contract.

Darvish’s agent probably wanted it that way. If you plan on opting out, you might as well try to front-load it as much as you can. The Cubs also probably have more money right now then they will later.

As far as finding pitching later on, if the Cubs sign Harper or Machado, I assume you can deal a young player for some pitching.

Going over luxury tax in the 2019 season probably means the Cubs lose a draft pick for 2019 and then the penalties will slam them with lost draft picks and forfeited international money. So I imagine this summer will be very important for restocking the minors.

myles: Darvish’s agent probably wanted it that way. If you plan on opting out, you might as well try to front-load it as much as you can. The Cubs also probably have more money right now then they will later.

I understand why the agent wanted it and I understand that contracts are an agreement. Darvish didn’t get the front-loaded contract plus an opt-out without giving up something on the back end of the deal (less financial security and fewer teams he can reject a trade to). I’m just not sure I’ve seen it before. I probably have, but I don’t remember it.

I don’t think it really matters because both parties looked at this as a 2/45 deal with an insurance policy.